The Author’s pioneer ancestors were early settlers in the western movement, sometimes trekking roughly cleared pathways behind teams of oxen. Family meetings and marriages at New Ipswich, NH, Watervliet, NY, New Castle, KY, Richmond, IN, Old Oxford, IL, Mt. Pleasant, IW, Firth, NE, and Denver, CO, form the basis of this historical and genealogy story. Family chronicles, deeds, wills, census records, tombstones and written biological sketches form the basis for this book. Research was conducted in 87 counties in 22 states from Maine to Colorado, and also Wales, Scotland and England, over a 16 year period.

Baron Albert Maria von St. Luz-Boden (1818-1891) emigrated from Germany to Australia about 1849 as a political refugee. He married Mary Kirby, widow of Alexander MacKinlay. She had four children when they married and they had six more. About 1935, the family immigrated to California where he died.

Thomas Mould, son of William Molds and Mary Edith Pick, was born in 1827 in Woodcroft, Northamptonshire, England. He married Rose Ann Mackness, daughter of Jabez Mackness and Mary Wade, in 1852. They had eleven children. He died in 1906. Descendants and relatives lived mainly in England, the United States and New Zealand.

Thomas Hill (1723-1820) and his brother, Henry, immigrated from England to St. Mary's County, Maryland in 1744, married Rebecca Miles in 1753, and moved in 1787 land on Cartright's Creek near Bardstown, Kentucky. Descendants and relatives lived in Maryland, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, California and elsewhere.

Thomas family of Md. (1700-1800).